Shrike
The Shrike is a fast and agile broadsider, able to quickly move into and out of the fight. Despite having low vertical mobility, it makes up for these weakness in its sheer forward acceleration and speed. A relatively difficult ship to fly, the Shrike's movements are filled with quick repositions with the aim of devastating an enemy ship with it's powerful broadsides, however, with it's low health stats, one wrong move can quickly spell death. The Shrike is Alliance's faction-specific ship of the Order of Chaladon. It is the first ship from Alliance to make its way into PvP. Ship Layout Deck Layout The Shrike has a long slim upper deck which spans from the front of the ship all the way to the rear, where it connects to two raised platforms. The wider and shorter lower deck can be accessed by two sets of stairs towards the rear of the ship or by jumping down from the upper deck. Guns The Shrike has 2 light weapons and 2 heavy weapons. * Slots 1 and slot 2 are the heavy weapons, located at the fore of the lower deck, and point directly out to either side. * Slots 3 and slot 4 are the light weapons, located at the fore of the upper deck, and point directly out to either side. The Shrike brings a wild array of different broadside combinations. Sometimes each side is dedicated to a particular range or strategy. However, quite often the Shrike brings symmetrical broadsides and rapidly switches between them to compensate for the long reload times of some guns such as the Manticore Heavy Hwacha. Components * The hull component is located towards the rear of the upper deck, between the two sets of stairs that lead to the lower deck. * The balloon is located at the fore of the upper deck, between the two light guns. * The two heavy turning engines are located on the raised platforms at the rear of the upper deck, they can also be accessed from the lower deck by jumping or climb onto the railings beneath them, and from the medial sides, walking by supporting beams. It should be noted that on the current Shrike, two heavy engines together provides more thrust for longitudinal movement than central light engine, with 60% vs 40% ratio. * The light central engine is located at the aft of the lower deck, between the two sets of stairs that lead to the upper deck. * The helm is located at the fore of the lower deck, between the two heavy guns. Visibility is blocked by the upper deck. Overall, the Shrike has arguably the most compact deck layout and its components are very close together. On the other side, its decks are composed of many ramps that slightly slow down movement. Crew Roles Pilot * In cases in which ship movement is not in top priority, the pilot is able to help repairing and rebuilding the heavy weapons. * Pilot tools set for increase speed and maneuverability of ship is strongly recommended, like Kerosene, Phoenix Claw and Hydrogen Canister, with possible variation. Fore Engineer * The forward engineer is responsible for shooting and maintaining the two light weapons as well as maintaining the balloon and assist with hull and engines rebuild. * They often bring a Pipe Wrench, Dynabuff Industries Kit and a fire-fighting tool in order to maximize the ship's maneuverability by buffing the balloon and engines, and increase damage output from light gun. * Alternatively, this engineer can bring set for emergency repair as Mallet, Spanner and a fire-fighting tool. Aft Engineer * The aft engineer is responsible for maintaining the armor, two heavy engines and light engine, they may also be called on to assist in maintaining the balloon or heavy weapons. * The aft engineer usually brings a as Mallet, Spanner and a fire-fighting tool for this purpose. * As a very compact ship, the Shrike has a significant overlap between the areas of responsibility of the two engineers. This opens up additional possibilities in the choice of tools. * In the case of a small fire risk, the aft engineer can replace the fire tool with a buff hammer to provide a continuous buff of the engines during the entire combat. This leaves only one fire-fighting tool on the ship at the fore engineer, but he can easily reach the fire-critical armor and balloon. In addition, the pilot can bring a firetool to prevent the blocking of heavy guns. * Mallet can be replaced by a Fail-safe Kit to ensure maximum engine performance when using pilot tools. The repair of the armor is usually left to the fore engineer in this case to obtain an immediate addition to the armor. Gunner * The Gunner is responsible for shooting and maintaining the two heavy weapons and often help with maintaining the light engine. * Gunner's stamina allows the reach of a more horizontal arc which will allow earlier use of heavy gun. Also this allows fire during fast maneuvers done by pilot. Patch History 2.0.14 Thornholt Throwdown Thrust ratio between heavy turning engines and light engine was changed, while total forward thrust keep same. Strategy Thanks to her high speed and heavy armament, the Shrike is great at hit-and-run attacks: Stay in cover until an opportunity arises, then sweep to the enemy and fire a hwacha to disable the enemy. If it worked, continue firing to cause hull damage, otherwise move on into cover again. Gun Layout The standard gun layout for the Shrike uses 2 hwachas and 2 gatlings, giving it good disabling and decent killing power at medium to short range. Common variations are to replace one side with weapons better suited at a different range level. __NOEDITSECTION__ Category:Airships Category:Alliance Category:Order of Chaladon